Discovery of Ediacaran Fossils in Southeastern Newfoundland

In the summer of 1967, S.B.Misra an Indian graduate student (1966 - 69) from Newfoundland's Memorial University discovered a rich asssemblage of imprints of soft bodied organisms on the surface of large rock slabs in the Conception Group of Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland near Cape Race, at a place called Mistaken Point.

These unusual impressions of previously unknown soft-bodied sea animals on the surfaces of argillites (mudstone) included coelenterates and other metazoa of the ediacarian age ie. more than 560 million years old. Misra made the discovery during the course of geological mapping of the previously unmapped area of southeastern
part of the Avelon Peninsula of Newfoundland.

Misra was the first to prepare and present a
systematic geological map of the region, to classify and describe the
rock sequence of the area and to work out the depositional history of the rocks.

The description of the fossil assemblage together with their mode of occurrence,
cause of sudden death, ecological conditions and chronological position form
part of Misra's detailed thesis submitted at Memorial University of Newfoundland for the
degree of Master of Science. The discovery was reported in 1968 in the NATURE
published from London. Misra described the Mistaken Point Fauna in detail in 1969, in a paper published in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America. He described the fossil assemblage into four groups namely:

Spindle-shaped

Leaf-shaped

Round lobate

Dendrite like

Radiating

Each group was defined in terms of Distribution and Form, sub-categories and biological affinity. The paper was acclaimed by geoscientists throughout the World.

Geological environment of the fossil-bearing rocks and ecology of the animals that lived and died in the Conception Sea, were described by Misra in two of his subsequent papers published in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America in 1971 and in the Journal of the Geological Society of India in 1981 respectively. He intends to publish his thesis of historical importance in the near future. He still has the original fossil bearing rock samples and numerous casts of the fossils with him. Those interested are free to contact regarding meaningful academic use of the specimens.
In 1987, a five kilometer stretch of the coast was declared an ecological reserve to protect the fossils.

Some papers published by Shiva Balak Misra on this subject are as follows :